But the aims of the world in which he moved were routed by the onrush of the ideals of democratic equality, fraternity, and liberty.  With the prosperity of the newer shibboleths, the old-time notion of aristocracy, gentility, and high breeding became more and more a curio to be framed suitably in gold and kept in the glass case of an art museum.  The crashing advance of the industrial age of gold thrust all courts and their sinuous graces aside for the unmistakable ledger balance of the counting-house.  This new order of things had been a long time in process, when, in the first year of this century, a distinguished English social historian, the late The Right Honorable G.W.E.  Russell, wrote:  “Probably in all ages of history men have liked money, but a hundred years ago they did not talk about it in society....  Birth, breeding, rank, accomplishments, eminence in literature, eminence in art, eminence in public service—­all these things still count for something in society.  But when combined they are only as the dust of the balance when weighed against the all-prevalent power of money.  The worship of the Golden Calf is the characteristic cult of modern society.”  In the Elizabethan Age of mighty glory, three hundred years before this was said, Ben Jonson had railed against money as “a thin membrane of honor,” groaning:  “How hath all true reputation fallen since money began to have any!” Now the very fact that the debasing effect of money on the social organism has been so constantly reprehended, from Scriptural days onward, proves the instinctive yearning of mankind for a system of life regulated by good taste, high intelligence and sound affections.  But, it remains true that, in the succession of great commercial epochs, coincident with the progress of modern science and invention, almost everything can be bought and sold, and so almost everything is rated by the standard of money.

Yet, this standard is precisely not the ultimate test of the Christianity on which we have been pluming ourselves through the centuries.  Still, no one can get along without money; and few of us get along very well with what we have.  At least we think so—­because everybody else seems to think that way.  We Americans are members of the nation which, materially, is the richest, most prosperous and most promising in the world.  This idea is dinned into our heads continually by foreign observers, and publicly we “own the soft impeachment.”  Privately, each individual American seems driven with the decision that he must live up to the general conception of the nation as a whole.  And he does, but in less strenuous moments he might profitably ponder the counsel of Gladstone to his countrymen:  “Let us respect the ancient manners and recollect that, if the true soul of chivalry has died among us, with it all that is good in society has died.  Let us cherish a sober mind; take for granted that in our best performances there are latent many errors which in their own time will come to light.”